Sophie's World Quotes & Sayings

Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition? — Jostein Gaarder

Sophie and Agatha locked eyes one last time but neither screamed for the other.
Once true loves, the two girls now pulled apart like strangers, each in the arms of a boy, Good with
Good, Evil with Evil ...
Both of their wishes granted. — Soman Chainani

But as they grew closer and closer, Sophie had opened Agatha's wings to a love so strong she thought it would last forever. It was she and Sophie against the world. But on that first day of school, watching Sophie with a prince, Agatha realized how blind she'd been. The bond between two girls, no matter how fierce or loyal, changed once a boy came between them. — Soman Chainani

I think I've been very lucky. The readers who write to me say they like the characters and the sense of a real world, often one they don't otherwise know about. And usually there's a funny bit in there somewhere. — Sophie Weston

The world has no sympathy with any but positive griefs. It will pity you for what you lose; never for what you lack — Sophie Swetchine

I find the subject of childhood fascinating. I explored this subject in Speak to me of love and I am curious about portraying the often painful transition into the adult world. — Sophie Marceau

The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it. — Sophie Swetchine

Eventually the real world intruded again, and Sophie had to return to campus - woefully behind on homework, but incandescently in love. — Molly Ringle

I have had people come to the site from all over the world. The US and Canada predominantly, but also Brazil and South Africa and Greece and Indonesia and Hong Kong and Ireland and Argentina and Spain and Israel and Australia. — Sophie Blackall

There was nothing in her world except waiting to be allowed to breathe, then breathing until he decided it was time for her to stop breathing again. — Sophie Kisker

Prepare yourself, Price, 'cause I'm about to rock your world. — Fisher Amelie

I wrote 'Sophie's World' in three months, but I was only writing and sleeping. I work for 14 hours a day when I'm working on a book. — Jostein Gaarder

Love is all that counts in this crazy, mixed-up world ... — Sophie Kinsella

He softly kissed her lips. I'm going to rock your world tonight, and then I'm going to do it again. Only different. You're going to come undone, Sophie, every which way you can, and i won't stop until you do. — Robin Bielman

I lied a lot when I was a kid. Somehow, I still do this today, but maybe in another way - not quite as ridiculously clumsily as I used to. But still, I think making music has a lot to do with it. One invents something that one can't possibly be. With songs, one invents a world that wouldn't exist otherwise. — Sophie Hunger

Suze us my oldest, dearest friend, and being with her used to feel like the easiest thing in the world. But now it feels like I'm in a stage play and I've forgotten my lines and she's not about to help me out. — Sophie Kinsella

With songs one invents a world that wouldn't exist otherwise. And in that world you can be more than you actually are. — Sophie Hunger

It struck Sophie that Comic-Con was something like a modern-day Brigadoon, a thriving city of a hundred and fifty thousand people that sprang up here in San Diego for less than a week every summer. People flocked to it from across the nation and around the world to populate it for its all-too-short existence, played their chosen roles, then dispersed back to their real homes as soon as the city disappeared. And the next summer, they'd do it all over again, forming a living history of their own in annual installments. — Matt Forbeck

There comes a point in most cases - and by no means only those in which Hercule Poirot has involved himself - when one starts to feel that it would be a greater comfort, and actually no less effective, to talk only to oneself and dispense with all attempts to communicate with the outside world. — Sophie Hannah

None but the estimable shall hear from me that I esteem them. The whole world is entitled to my courtesy, but greater tribute than that must be earned through virtuous acts. — Sophie Von La Roche

Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. What I might have set down with more accuracy would have been: Someday I will write about Sophie's life and death, and thereby help demonstrate how absolute evil is never extinguished from the world. Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response.
The query: "At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?"
And the answer: "Where was man? — William Styron

Above all, staring at my old bedroom ceiling, I feel safe. Cocooned from the world; wrapped up in cotton wool. No one can get me here. No one even knows I'm here. I won't get any nasty letters and I won't get any nasty phone calls and I won't get any nasty visitors. It's like a sanctuary. I feel as if I'm fifteen again, with nothing to worry about but my Homework. (And I haven't even got any of that.) — Sophie Kinsella

The more they lack material things, the more they indulge themselves when they can, but the less is their satisfaction with this world and they hunger for life after death(on Russian slave laborers.) — Sophie Scholl

But then you heard Sophie was coming to Hecate, and you decided to stay," Lara finished, and her lips twisted in the triumphant smile I'd seen on Mrs. Casnoff's face dozens of times. I stood there, frozen in place, as she turned back to me and said, "Mr. Callahan gave up a chance to travel the world with the Council so that he could be little more than a janitor on Graymalkin Island. For you. — Rachel Hawkins

This isn't solely about sex; if it was, I'd have fucked her already. This is uncomfortably more.
I have never experienced intimacy. I did not know how good it felt to simply be with someone and let everything else melt away. The world can fuck off when I'm with Sophie Darling. There is only us. I don't have to be anyone else but Gabriel. — Kristen Callihan

All the magic in the world can't simplify affairs of the heart. (Sophie's dad) — Rachel Hawkins

That's a Planeswalker demon." Dante slumped into the seat behind her. "You aren't crazy." Meg slid him a bemused glance. "I thought we'd settled that a few weeks back.""Nope," he said,shaking his head. "I was still certain you were loony.""Then why have you been helping me?""I don't know if you've noticed, sweetheart, but you have fabulous tits," Dante said with a sigh. "I figured once you gave up on the whole idea of being queen of the faery world, you might consider sleeping with me. Now I see that demons are real. I'm going to church tomorrow. — Sophie Oak

It was Sophie ( Sophie Arp Tauber, woman artist and later Arp's wife) who, by the example of her work and her life, both of them bathed in clarity, showed me the right way. In her world, the high and the low, the light and the dark, the eternal and the ephemeral, are balanced in prefect equilibrium. — Hans Arp

Everyone's moving on without me, into a world I don't understand. — Sophie Kinsella

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person's name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and "fruitfulness" is drawn in. — Mary Ann Shaffer

Sophie Germain proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something in the most rigorous and abstract of sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree. — Carl Friedrich Gauss

Air struggles up my throat and past my lips as Mom talks with our new landlady. Even with the air conditioner working at full blast, the air is thin, dry, and empty. I imagine this is how it feels for someone with asthma, this constant fight for breath. As if you can't ever fill your lungs with enough air. I glare at Mom. Of all the places in the world to relocate, she had to choose a desert. I'm certain she's a sadist. — Sophie Jordan

My imprint is there for the world to see. I don't try to hide it with my hair or a high collar. When I got ready for school this morning, I kept thinking of Sean. How proud he appears. Unapologetic. And I want to be like that. I don't want to look cowed or ashamed. I may not want to be this, but I don't want to be that girl, either. I don't want to be afraid. — Sophie Jordan

But we're just kids she thought For the moment yes But we are talking about the future You really think we'll still need a Black Swan that many years from now Yes I believe we will always need a Black Swan The world has gotten too complicated to leave any one group solely in charge There needs to be a system of checks and balances We do hope to someday work hand in hand with the Council But even if that never happens we should be there to keep them honest — Shannon Messenger

Sophie bristled. "About to die with your beloved prince and still thinking about me. My story will go on without you, Agatha. I don't need you anymore or your pity, like one of your decrepit cats. I'm no longer your Good Deed."

"But I'm still yours," said Agatha. "Because without your love, I'd never have become who I really am. So even if I die, I'll always be your Good Deed, Sophie. And no Evil in the world will ever erase that. — Soman Chainani

I've got a thing for footwear; I have about 200 pairs of shoes from all over the world. — Sophie Ellis-Bextor

To know your way round a library is to master the whole of culture, i.e. the whole world. — Sophie Divry

I suppose it was the end of the world for her when her husband and her baby were killed. I suppose she didn't care what became of her and flung herself into the horrible degradation of drink and promiscuous copulation to get even with life that had treated her so cruelly. She'd lived in heaven and when she lost it she couldn't put up with the common earth of common men, but in despair plunged headlong into hell. I can imagine that if she couldn't drink the nectar of the gods any more she thought she might as well drink bathroom gin.'
That's the sort of thing you say in novels. It's nonsense and you know it's nonsense. Sophie wallows in the gutter because she likes it. Other women have lost their husbands and children. It wasn't that that made her evil. Evil doesn't spring from good. The evil was there always. When that motor accident broke her defences it set her free to be herself. Don't waste your pity on her, she's now what at heart she always was. — W. Somerset Maugham

We're just looking and looking at each other. And I can feel something new between us, something even more intimate than anything we've done. Eye to eye. It's the most powerful connection in the world. — Sophie Kinsella

Every woman in the world sometimes thinks about shoes in the middle of sex. It's a well-known fact. — Sophie Kinsella

But it is possible that a completely different author is somewhere writing a book about a UN Major Albert Knag, who is writing a book for his daughter Hilde. This book is about a certain Alberto Knox who suddenly begins to send humble philosophical lectures to Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover Close. — Jostein Gaarder

My real interest is traveling the world's tormented places and revealing the scars and the traces on the ground. I am dedicated to the earth. — Sophie Ristelhueber

According to Kierkegaard, rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual's life. It is important to find 'the truth for me'. — Jostein Gaarder

When we suffer prolonged anxiety, we have a tendency to become self-obsessed...You believe the whole world is thinking about you constantly. You believe the world is judging you and talking about you...The more you engage with the outside world, the more you'll be able to turn down the volume on those worries. You'll see that they're unfounded. You'll see that the world is a very busy and varied place and most people have the attention span of a gnat. They've already forgotten what happened. They don't think about it. — Sophie Kinsella

Sophie, every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith - acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors. — Dan Brown

I never write about CIA conspiracies or the FBI or mafia or anything like that because I just don't understand that world. But I think I do understand individual human harmfulness. — Sophie Hannah

In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and nothing which goes is lost. — Sophie Swetchine

You learn that, when your children are all right, everything is right in the world. — Sophie Ellis-Bextor

In this remarkably fast-developing world of science and technology, never forget that we are more than genetic code. We can be more than the labels applied to us. We can be more than what others whisper behind our backs or shout in our faces. Free will exists. We need to choose to be the best we can be, and we need to help others do the same. — Sophie Jordan

It's very flattering to be remembered as a Bond girl with brains and not just for looking good in a bikini. I was a fan of Sophie Marceau in 'The World Is Not Enough.' I think her performance was very underrated. — Eva Green

Many people think of our times as being the last before the end of the world. The evidence of horror all around us makes this seem possible. But isn't that an idea of only minor importance? Doesn't every human being, no matter which era he lives in, always have to reckon with being accountable to God at any moment? Can I know whether I'll be alive tomorrow morning? A bomb could destroy all of us tonight. And then my guilt would not be one bit less than if I perished together with the arth and the stars. — Sophie Scholl

Vianne didn't hesitate. She knew now that no one could be neutral - not anymore - and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie's life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need. She reached for the toddler, took him in her arms. — Kristin Hannah

Once upon a time, thirty thousand years ago, there lived a little boy in the Rhine valley. He was a tiny part of nature, a tiny ripple on an endless sea. You too. Sophie, you too are living a tiny part of nature's life. There is no difference between you and that boy.'
'Except that I'm alive now.'
'Yes, but that is precisely what I wanted you to try and imagine. Who will you be in thirty thousand years? — Jostein Gaarder

The problem with life is, we often do things that will ultimately be self-destructive and make us unhappy, yet in that moment it seems like the best idea in the world. You have to be careful of moments - they're tricksy things. — Sophie Dahl

You don't want to be innocent in the world of 'Game of Thrones.' — Sophie Turner

Sounds charming,' I said impatiently. But I didn't come here to talk about the end of the world.'

'Really?' He tipped his hat up and looked at me. 'By the expression on that pretty face of yours, I'd have thought it was at least that.'

I snorted impatiently. 'If you're going to be flippant-'

'What? You'll give me a kiss? Then I'll be as flippant as I can possibly be. — Sophie Masson

The inventory of my faith for this lower world is soon made out. I believe in Him who made it. — Sophie Swetchine

Hegel said that 'truth' is subjective, thus rejecting the existence of any 'truth' above or beyond human reason. All knowledge is human knowledge. — Jostein Gaarder

Jennifer Aniston and Her New Man'" I read the words aloud uncertainly. "What new man? Why would she need a new man?"
"Oh yes." Nicole follows my gaze, unconcerned. "You know she split up from Brad Pitt?"
"Jennifer and Brad split?" I stare up at her, aghast. "You can't be serious! They can't have done!"
"He went off with Angelina Jolie. They've got a daughter."
"No!" I wail. "But Jen and Brad were so perfect together! They looked so good and they had that lovely wedding picture and everything ... "
"They're divorced now." Nicole shrugs, like it's no big deal.
I can't get over this. Jennifer and Brad divorced. The world is a different place. — Sophie Kinsella

If you only have one world, one life, then however brilliant it is most of the time, you have nowhere to run when you need to escape from it for a while. — Sophie Hannah

A good, finished scandal, fully armed and equipped, such as circulates in the world, is rarely the production of a single individual, or even of a single coterie. It sees the light in one; is rocked and nurtured in another; is petted, developed, and attains its growth in a third; and receives its finishing touches only after passing through a multitude of hands. It is a child that can count a host of fathers
all ready to disown it. — Sophie Swetchine

I'm allergic to family occasions. Sometimes I think we'd do better as dandelion seeds-no family, no history, just floating off into the world, each on our own piece of fluff. — Sophie Kinsella

So I buy it. The most perfect little cardigan in the world. People will call me the Girl in the Gray Cardigan. I'll be able to live in it. Really, it's an investment. — Sophie Kinsella

In this world of change naught which comes stays and naught which goes is lost. — Sophie Swetchine

It wasn't until after college that I started writing. I had just applied randomly for jobs in the media and got one on a magazine called 'Pensions World.' So I was writing for a living there and that's when I started my first book. — Sophie Kinsella

We're just doing our best to live in this world, Davy." Sean's voice stretches into the fading dark. "We're not perfect, but we're not monsters, either. We're just human. — Sophie Jordan

Sophie could feel Syrena's sigh; the mermaid's body beneath her sagged with it. "Can't even be mad at you," the mermaid said, her voice little more than a mumble. "You too stupid to even be mad at. You live in world without poetry, without poets. You think poet's job to tell your mother happy birthday. You are such a fool you don't even know you are a fool. How can I be mad at such fool? Poet's job to create the world. — Michelle Tea

Kierkegaard also said that truth is 'subjective'. By this he did not mean it doesn't matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are 'true for me'. — Jostein Gaarder

When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it's not, and I need to do it again.
(Confessions of a Shopaholic-the movie) — Sophie Kinsella

Exactly what he wanted me to do. Exactly what they all thought I would do. Everyone in here. Everyone out there in the world. A world so afraid of carriers, it makes killers out of the innocent. — Sophie Jordan

Most people who are successful don't keep their money. One of the rarest things in the world is to maintain success and integrity - the kinds of things that seem so easy just starting out. But that's the human predicament. — Sophie B. Hawkins

Nevertheless we are free individuals, and this freedom condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do. Sartre emphasized that man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we "must" go to work, or we "must" live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live "authentically" or "truly". — Jostein Gaarder

Throughout the entire history of philosophy, philosophers have sought to discover what man is - or what human nature is. But Sartre believed that man has no such eternal nature to fall back on. It is therefore useless to search for the meaning of life in general. We are condemned to improvise. We are like actors dragged onto the stage without having learned our lines, with no script and no prompter to whisper stage directions to us. We must decide for ourselves how to live. — Jostein Gaarder

I wish I could give you a world where everything was perfect and shining and safe. I used to think that's what we had ... " He shook his head. "I've realized now that our world doesn't define us. We define our world. And I hope you'll fill yours with as much light and happiness as you can."
"You realize how silly that sounds, right?"
"I do. But after everything that's happened, I think we could all use a bit more silly in our lives. — Shannon Messenger

The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I don't want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum. — Jostein Gaarder

When your world falls apart and everything's ruined, you lose part of yourself. Not all, inconveniently. One half, the best half, dies. The other half lives. — Sophie Hannah

Let us resist the opinion of the world fearlessly, provided only that our self-respect grows in proportion to our indifference. — Sophie Swetchine

The world was a merciless place. Hard and cruel. Except when you found someone to trust and love. Life, however fleeting, possessed meaning then. — Sophie Jordan

She reminds herself that everyone has thoughts they wouldn't care to share with the world. Many people have quite perverse thoughts about doing things with animals or fruit, or being spanked by nurses. The difference, of course, is that their thoughts are securely locked away behind bland faces, whereas Sophie's are always in danger of being revealed to all in a sudden flood of colour. — Liane Moriarty

No matter how many times the elves explained the "illumination in a darkened world" analogy, she would never stop thinking it was weird to have a school named after glowing fungus. — Shannon Messenger

Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced it is the nicest place in the world to live. As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright, as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize. — Sophie Hannah

Let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?"
"I probably would."
"And why would that be?"
"Because I would know how impossible it all is."
"So ... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are."
"I guess that's right."
"And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that the child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher? He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences — Jostein Gaarder

I've been avoiding you because I'm just so damn annoyed ... " He shakes his head, sloshing water. The strands brush his shoulders rhythmically. "I don't want you risking yourself again. The human world ... Will. It's too dangerous." Cassian takes my hand. I feel his heartbeat through the simple touch, the thud of his life meeting with mine. "You dead ... it would break me." His voice whips sharply over the drum of the rainfall. "Everything I ever said to you was the truth. My feelings haven't changed for you, Jacinda. Even if you drive me crazy, here, in the pride ... you're still that single bright light for me. — Sophie Jordan

Sophie knew that 'modesty' was an old-fashioned word for shyness - for example, about being seen naked. But was it really natural to be embarrassed about that? If something was natural, she supposed, it was the same for everybody. In many parts of the world it was completely natural to be naked. So it must be society that decides what you can and can't do. When Grandma was young you certainly couldn't sunbathe topless. But today, most people think it is 'natural,' even though it is still strictly forbidden in lots of countries. Was this philosophy? Sophie wondered. — Jostein Gaarder

Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?' enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.
'One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,' says Sugar. 'It saves time and paper.' Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, 'If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?'
Sophie answers without hesitation.
'I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand. — Michel Faber

The individual in modern urban society had become 'the public', he said [Kierkegaard], and the predominant characteristic of the crowd, or the masses, was all their noncommittal 'talk'. Today we would probably use the word 'conformity'; that is when everybody 'thinks' and 'believes in' the same things without having any deeper feeling about it. — Jostein Gaarder

In the garden everything was wonderfully clear and still. The birds were chirping so energetically that Sophie could hardly keep from laughing. The morning dew twinkled in the grass like drops of crystal. Once again she was struck by the incredible wonder of the world. — Jostein Gaarder

That's what this is about then? Some blasted grudge you harbor against my father?" She muttered something indecipherable beneath her breath in a language he suspected was not English. French, perhaps? Her words were too low for him to determine. "Has the world gone mad?"
"Has it ever been sane?" he asked. He ahd decided the world a far from logical place long ago, when he'd been lost to the streets at the tender age of eight. "When you mull it over, you and I marrying is scarcely absurd. Fitting perhaps. Face it, neither of us is a feted blueblood. — Sophie Jordan

My true friends, and my son, see me with kind eyes. I feel it. So that's the freedom my children have given me. To be naked in the world with an open heart. — Sophie B. Hawkins

London is one of the most fascinating, historic, amazing cities in the world! — Sophie Kinsella

That's the trouble with having the whole world love you. One day, you wake up and it's flirting with your best friend instead. And you don't know what to do. You're thrown. — Sophie Kinsella

I used to write songs that were deeply personal, but since I am becoming so passionate about the world around me, that passion and drive is starting to come into my work. — Sophie B. Hawkins

She was ... is beautiful. Like her mother. Like you." He touched me then, pressing one finger directly over my heart. "You have it in here." He coughed violently, his hand dropping away from me. "It's a beauty that nothing can take away. Not this world or its monsters. — Sophie Jordan

Ok now
I don't read "all the time." Remember, that these ratings are over quite a while. I'll try to put in some comments over what I've been reading lately. I like Vince Flynn's spy/thrillers. Also, check out Umberto Eco's one "On Beauty"
not the precise title, but great art/comments. Also, Sophie's World if you like a pretty unusual story with philosophy mixed in. — Umberto Eco

Sophie saw that the philosopher was right. Grownups took the world for granted. They had let themselves be lulled into the enchanted sleep of their humdrum existence once and for all. 'You've just grown so used to the world that nothing surprises you any more. — Jostein Gaarder

I have to have another child. I have to bring someone into this world that will be here for Dashiell. — Sophie B. Hawkins

Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours."
"He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything."
"Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies."
"What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead! — Diana Wynne Jones

But could anything have always existed? Something deep down inside her protested at the idea. Surely everything that exists must have had a beginning? So space must sometime have been created out of something else. But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring the problem. At some point, something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn't that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always existed? — Jostein Gaarder

We are all of us, in this world, more or less like St. January, whom the inhabitants of Naples worship one day, and pelt with baked apples the next. — Sophie Swetchine

She knew now that no one could be neutral - not anymore - and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie's life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need. — Kristin Hannah